WHILE THE COUNTRY continues to argue
over same-sex marriage as a legal right, Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle
have firmly situated their love affair in the realm of culture by staging their
commitment to each another as performance art. Last December the couple began
the piece Seven Years of Love as Art with the first of seven annual marriages
based on the chakras' themes and colors. "I Do" presents documentation
of the event, including a video projection, and the ruby-red outfits worn by the
couple. In the center of the gallery Stephens and Sprinkle have placed a bed covered
with a red "security" blanket  the theme of their first year of
marriage  where they invite the audience to cuddle with them at weekly scheduled
times. The piece is something like an updated version of John Lennon and Yoko
Ono's late-'60s "bed-in," as the artists make their personal lives public
and, in so doing, challenge the policies of the state. Stephens and Sprinkle refuse
to be denied their right to marry and lay claim to it on grounds that exceed the
authority of the government. They present marriage as a cultural institution shaped
by interpersonal dynamics and demonstrate the power of groups to construct communal
bonds and systems of meaning on their own terms. In the process, they thematize
the art already at work in social institutions  and in marriage and gender
roles in particular. The show includes documentation of other performance pieces
by Stephens, including Maybe Baby, a ritual designed to help her determine
which of 10 sperm donations to choose, and Wish You Were Here, a four-month-road
trip during which she took directions from her friends to photograph roadside
altars, talk to locals about military monuments, and document "tokens of
butchdom," among other assignments. Stephens'sThe Panty Project
is a collection of bronzed underwear worn by porn stars and academics. Accompanying
text overexaggerates the association between the two as classes, but the piece
documents the remarkableintersection between the divergent groups in such
figures as Sprinkle and Sharon Mitchell, who hold Ph.D.s and participate in porn
films. Perhaps this is the ideal that Stephens and Sprinkle seek to embody in
their marriage  to think with the sex appeal of porn stars and to make love
with the intellectual rigor of academics. Mon.-Wed., Fri., 1-5 p.m., 465 South
Van Ness, S.F. (415) 217-9340. (Clark Buckner)